


Worse Than a Crime

by Filigranka



Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: M/M, Manipulation, Politics, Rhetoric, opera - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-14
Updated: 2019-09-14
Packaged: 2020-10-18 16:29:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20642207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Filigranka/pseuds/Filigranka
Summary: Finis is a man who made a mistake, not an utter fool.





	Worse Than a Crime

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Chrysaora](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chrysaora/gifts).

Tonight’s premiere has been _The Invisible Knight IV_—pretty entertaining, but soulless, paint by numbers adventures of Himmi, the daughter of the protagonist of the first opera in the franchise.

Overall, far from the best spectacle, Finis watched in his life. But it had its moments and he even smiled a few times. Laughed, once. And stars know he needs some joy in his life, now, when Palpatine is the most popular Chancellor in ages and Finis can’t go to any prestigious theatre premiere without bumping shoulders with him and watching the crow cheer him more than it ever did Valorum himself.

But Finis’ love for art, contrary to what gossips claim, is genuine. He doesn’t want to resign from it. Hence, him welcoming invitations to less prestigious premieres... like _The Invisible Knight IV_. At least the singer cast as Lillah, the daughter of the main antagonists from the second opera and now Himmi’s reluctant ally, sang really well. And she was a débutante. Finis might have witnessed the birth of a real star. There’s some prestige—pride—in it, too. Art, after all, is eternal, unlike political quibbles.

Finis laughs, bitterly. He is grabbing at straws, isn’t he? He would welcome anything proving he still has some position and importance. Recently, he considered becoming a theatre critic—under the pen name, of course—just to get some influence over reality, again, even if only regarding someone’s scenic career.

He’s pathetic (Sheev made him pathetic). Finis supposes he should take some consolation in this clarity of mind. It’s a proof he hasn’t lost all of his political instinct, despite the disaster his _cordial relations_ with Palpatine proved to be.

It proves he made a mistake but isn’t an utter fool.

And so, he’s immediately wary, when upon coming back from _The Invisible Knight IV_—no, let’s be honest with himself, it was a total fiasco, Lillah or not—he finds Palpatine in his apartment.

The Chancellor is alone, without his advisers or bodyguards. Not that Finis trusts this display of friendliness. There’re surveillance cameras thinner than a hair, there’s the equipment picking up your body distress signals and immediately alarming your guards. Valorum used it all as the Chancellor, too.

‘I see you helped yourself to the cabinet.’

Palpatine’s rises an eyebrow._ I Live for Love, I Live for Freedom_, one of Valorum’s favourite arias, is playing the background.

‘I did. And I noticed it’s much emptier than the last... Than before. You drink too much, old friend.’

It stings. Finis can’t say he’s surprised.

‘Perhaps I just get fewer gifts, now when I’m no longer the Chancellor.’

‘Gifts can be amended. Your boredom, too.’

Oh, yes, this can be amended, but sure. Gifts. Trinkets. Some shiny, but a relatively meaningless seat in a commission. Not respect or dignity—not when everybody would know the price, swallowing down the humiliation and becoming Palpatine’s ally, a student becoming a master, this old parable—but enough of prestige to fake it.

Prestige, greed and fear. Palpatine’s word already proved more powerful than any other Chancellor had been in decades, if not centuries. If Valorum was seen as one of his “old friends” again, others would make a queue to ask him for favours—or offering their own. It wouldn’t be good for the Republic... But really, things haven’t been good for the Republic for ages, now, and yet it still stands. It won’t fall because of the usual personal quibbles and schemes. It won’t fall because of Valorum’s personal choices or mistakes, for sure, even Finis isn’t vain enough to think it might.

His silence must give Palpatine the wrong (wrong, really?) impression, because he stands up and comes closer, reaching to Finis, a cup of freshly poured wine in his hand.

‘It’s painful to see the man with some many talents, so many virtues... one who spent all his life in service to the Republic... now, spending his days drinking in his apartment and smiling to journalists from gossip columns.’

‘I thought you found me not talented enough to serve the Republic.’

‘Please, Finis. There’re other positions than the Chancellor’s seat. You shouldn’t take this so personally. I’m sure you didn’t plan to be the Chancellor until the last day of your life, right?’

Valorum wonders, briefly, if it is a threat—“I could have had you assassinated instead”—or is he becoming overly paranoid.

‘Of course not. It’d be illegal. And I’d gladly see you as my successor, once.’ It’s the first time he says these words aloud, and they hurt. But there’s a surprising amount of rage in them, too. He expected himself to sound more defeated. ‘But not like this.’

‘The procedure was entirely legal,’ says Palpatine quickly, perhaps too quickly. An instinct of someone already too accustomed to defending his own ascend.

‘Legal?’ Finis laughs. ‘Is this the normal word to describe the state of affairs between “old friends” on Naboo?’

Sheev’s face softens, like the wax in a nearly melted candle. It makes Finis, who aimed to hurt, feel more pathetic than before.

It was Palpatine, who said Valorum that humans' body language tricks are cultural, not universal and that many citizens from more peripheral worlds see using them as a sign of betraying one own culture. For example, he said that touching some you don’t know very well, would be considered highly suspicious on Naboo. Naboo, after its centuries of democracy—so, scheming, plotting, civil wars between the families!—valued distance wide enough it’d make hard to stab you. It was also, apparently, the reason behind all these complicated, over-constructed ceremonial robes, so huge the person’s silhouette got lost in them.

Granted, Finis, for all his love for aesthetics and art, wasn’t so excited to broaden his horizons about the piece of peripheral culture’s trivia. No, it was worse. He was happy to think Sheev shared something close to his own heart with him. He was happy to have an explanation for Sheev's sometimes very stiff and distanced behaviour, for the way he seemed to be dosing out every bit of touch or intimacy. And what makes Finis an utter fool, not a man-with-his-share-of-mistakes only, is that after losing everything he sought someone from Naboo—someone as far from political circles as possible—to confirm the whole distance-intimacy thing.

Upon getting confirmation, he felt relieved, like it was all that mattered, like it could matter (anymore) at all. And now Finis can’t even irritate Palpatine with this memory. He can only make him pity him. Great. What a fool he was to think—

‘Ah.’ Sheev lets out a very elegant, carefully measured sigh. ‘It pained me, too. But what was I supposed to do, when my planet was invaded and my queen came to me, begging for help for my people?’

‘Your queen. The child, who—‘

‘I hope,’ Palpatine’s voice becomes cold, ‘you don’t mean to insult our traditions and customs, and legal system, ratified by the Republic itself when Naboo joined it...?’

Actually, for a moment, Finis wants to. Very much. Insult old customs of Naboo, of a million other planets, insult the Republic itself. But he’s still too much of the politician and his well-honed instincts push the words back to his throat, make him smile and shout, lightly, purely for show, “I’d never—"

‘Good. If you did, I, as a patriot and an admirer of queen Amidala’s wisdom, would feel much worse about this.’ And then Sheev kisses him, hard, deep, possessive.

Finis finds himself—well, first, reasonable enough to put the cup on the table, second, responding. It has been months, but the kiss feels exactly like their last one. Sheev tastes the same and some part of Valorum’s mind wonders if it because he chose to use the same chewing stick and wine, consciously, to recall this memory.

Other parts of his brain are all smitten and falling, gently, into the old, well-known pattern. Grasping the front of Sheev’s dark shirt. Letting Sheev push his knee between Finis’ legs, run his hands down his back and grab his arse—

The great career, indeed. From the Chancellor’s to the Chancellor’s whore, hisses a voice in Finis mind.

It feels foreign. It’s cold, ruthless, harsh. But it’s also—right.

Valorum is anything if not proud, so he pushes Sheev away. The wine falls on the floor. It’s nothing. Droids will take care of it.

‘You insult me,’ hisses Finis.

He isn’t sure what exactly he means—does Palpatine insults his intelligence or his dignity, or their past “friendship”, or... but he’s quite sure he’s right. He must be because Sheev doesn’t try to deny it, just tilts his head to the left.

‘I truly wish you could see it differently,’ he says finally, his voice perfectly neutral and polite. The voice he uses in negotiations. ‘I wish we could be... Could work together, again.’

The aria is still going. Palpatine had to put it on repeat. Such a considerate move. Such a pity it went to waste.

‘Or what? Or you kill me?’ Valorum sounds overdramatic to his own ears, but he decides he has every right to a bit of theatrics.

After all, he’s just realised he was being—no, better to not think about it, not this way. He’s just started to hate the man he used to sleep with. Yes, that’s better. The more active role, a rhetorical evergreen.

Palpatine seems deeply amused. He half-caresses, half-pats Finis’ cheek.

‘Oh, no, no. I’d never. I’d be like shooting from a fighter to a fly. You, my dear old friend—believe me, it’s a kindness which dictates me these precise words—are just no longer important.’


End file.
